BRAND NAMES USED TODAY : Mars Bar Diet Tango Raleigh Bicycles Elton John WARNING If you bought an Elton John from the New Malden branch of Woolworths this year, please return it immediately. A fundamental design flaw may lead to your Elton John attacking you or trying to hump your arm. 'ALLO 'ALLO CATCHPHRASE CHECK-LIST "Ze flashink bedknobs!" "You stupid woman!" "I was pissing by your door...." "It is I, Leclerc!" "Renee, what are you doing?" "Would you like a ride in my little tank?" "Club!" "Ooooohhhh, Renee!" "I will say this only once." "The three counterfeit copies of the Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies by Van Clomp are hidden in the hollow knockwursts in the chateau, and Herr Flick is throwing a sausage party tonight! Unless we recover them, he will round up our little village and force us to dig the graves for our own children, then shoot us in the back of the head!" DIFFICULT THINGS TO DENY The colour of your eyes That you are crying Demands of an ill grandmother
Nature's Periscope Put To News Use today : scrambling to avoid comparisons to everything else that brings you news that isn't really true New Law Protects War Criminals From Embarrassing Panda Attacks Legislation passed this week allows known war criminals to obtain injunctions against pandas who have been persistently stalking them. Genocidal murderers fear that humanitarian groups are training pandas to publicly embarrass them, and make people point and put the other hand over their mouth to stifle a laugh. The matter was brought to the public eye when a lady panda dressed with a ribbon in her hair walked very closely in front of Ratko Mladic, and then suddenly stopped - ostensibly to tie her shoelaces. As a result, Ratko, who was distracted by a conversation with his best friend Radovan Karadzic, walked into her rear - as a representative from Amnesty International took photographs. The resulting headlines in the English tabloid press, which inferred a sexual interest in the panda on the part of the president ("Randy Ratko Panda Poker"), upset the Serb commander very much, and he is said to have snapped a pencil when he saw the press. "I do not find pandas attractive," asserted Mladic, "and I would like to wipe them all off the face of this big ol' crazy planet we call Earth, forever." New Big Japanese Men Used For Fighting The Japanese Army is hoping to benefit from big new versions of themselves, created by the addition of flesh to reflections from bent mirrors. The mirrors have to be coated in diamond dust in order to create the glittering high resolution reflections required, and the lasers used as carriers beams for the flesh input are so powerful that they could power a windmill for five thousand years - well into the next millenium. The new soldiers measure about 6'4" tall. Some prototypes reached a height of 7'6", but at this height the soldiers were kind of see-through, and prone to leaking out of their skins, which were made out of the pig's intestine, like big sausages. Brought to life by a slow shallow-fry process, the body temperature must be kept between 72 and 74 degrees Fahrenheit - and lower and they cannot move and begin to smell, any higher and they spectacularly explode. This ability may lead to their being used as kamikaze soldiers, but it may prove to be less economical with manpower - it takes three regular soldiers to provide enough flesh to make one super-soldier! Square Wheeled Bicycle Required by Man Stuck On Stairs A man stuck half-way up (or down) a flight of steps has put out a desperate plea for a square-wheeled bicycle. Jordan Finch, 38, has been stuck on a small plateau area between flights for fifteen minutes, and is beginning to get thirsty. "I just can't see any other way out of this infernal pickle - obviously a regular bicycle won't help, as they are designed for smooth terrain." Jordan is being kept calm by a security guard with a loudhailer at the bottom of the stairs, who has thrown up a Mars Bars, but only has Apple Tango, which Jordan doesn't like much. When asked how he got into his current position without the aid of a square-wheeled bicycle. Mr Finch became evasive, and made suggestions that he had been put there by the dark forces of a forgotten realm. As plans at the local Raleigh factory are drawn up for a suitable bicycle, local clowns are being asked if they know of such a contraption. Meanwhile, Jordan Finch resigns himself to bedding down for the night, and has asked for the security guard to keep an eye out for ninjas dribbling poison into his mouth along a wire dangled from the ceiling. Candle In Wind Metaphor Ruined By Novelty Relighting Candle "Candle In The Wind", the incredibly moving song written by Bernie Taupin and Elton John, is in jeopardy every time someone buys a packet of novelty relighting candles. Originally dedicated to Marilyn Mansun, the song was tastefully rewritten in an hour to celebrate the unpunished manslaughter of Princess Diana in 1997. "It makes a nonsense of the lyrics, and I took ages over them so that they rhymed," complained Taupin. "It sort of implies that Marilyn and Princess Diana both died for about three seconds and then came back to life, which just isn't the case at all." Even normal candles, however, can be lit again, although this analogy implies some arcane voodoo ceremony of resurrection. The novelty candle metaphor, however, is more like Terminator walking through a hail of bullets, falling over, then getting up again, targets still set on his quarry. It is this image that Mr Taupin deems unfitting for the memory of Princess Diana. "She was not a robot. She was a beautiful human princess." Local Fat Lady Sings - No-One Sure What's Over Hagley, Stourbridge. A fat woman singing caused alarm, yesterday afternoon, when nothing tangible ended. Fears that something more sinister had ended - or even worse, that the end of something had merely begun - are rife in Harberrow Close. Margaret Short, an overweight housewife, took the time out from eating three quarters of the food she was preparing for her family to sing along to the theme tune of Home & Away. Thelma Hayes has asserted that fat lady song is one of the seven portents of the apocalypse. Either the fourth or the fifth, she isn't really sure, but it's somewhere near the middle. A more mundane explanation was offered by Alex Patterson who said that he stopped mowing the lawn to see who was singing - so the singing may have heralded the end of his gardening. This brings up an ugly theoretical argument. Can the fat lady singing legitimately cause the end of the event that it is designed to merely precede? That may be some sort of logical paradox, and could lead to fat ladies abusing their power of song. The only way out may be to shoot every fat woman in the world, argues Peter Stringfellow. Lingual Joke Goes Over Foreigner's Head "It is not fair", compained Gilles Derniame, a French Exchange student in Derby. "They thought I was stupid because I did not get their silly joke." The witticism, which was based around the similar sound of the phrases "I'm a country member", and "I'm a cunt, remember", passed straight over the student's head, for twenty seconds. When he finally got to the bottom of the homonym, he was too late, and had laughed at an inappropriate moment. "It wasn't even very funny. It was just a way for these repressed idiots to swear and make it seem respectable. To wrap up your vulgarity in that manner, and then to call it a joke is just so fucking English. You are so ashamed of every word you say that it makes me feel sick that I bothered to learn your shitty language." M. Derniame reacted angrily when it was suggested that he did not actually believe what he was saying - he was just recovering whatever face he could, as he felt like a nob-end after not getting a relatively easy joke. "Of course you would say that," he whined in a really irritating accent.